by Riley Storm
“I do not look grumpy!” he protested, starting to turn his head.
“Look forward. Smile, or else you look grumpy,” she said.
Victor rolled his eyes but did as he was told. “Yes, dear.”
“Much better,” she said. “Much better.”
“Don’t get used to it,” he growled under his breath, though his smile was quickly becoming more genuine.
“Everyone, please, the main project developer working behind the scenes, Cheryl Anders!”
“Break a leg,” he said with a laugh as Cheryl stepped forward to shake the Mayor’s hand and accept the microphone for a brief speech.
He’d heard the speech a dozen times before as Cheryl had practiced it on him, and so he didn’t need to pay attention to every word. She thanked her team first and foremost, inviting them to stand up from their seats behind her on the little raised stage. Then she thanked Aaric and Victor and the entire Drakon family for their generous investment in the town. He waved politely at that.
“Fire it up!” she called at the end of her speech, and behind the crowd, one of the excavators rumbled to life.
The entire construction site was levelled and flat now, void of debris, the cleanup crews having finished their work.
It was time to break ground.
Victor knew the crowd was all turning to watch the excavator make the first ceremonial scoop, to signify that construction was officially underway. While they all turned to watch, however, his eyes stayed glued to Cheryl.
This was for her, he knew. This was her big moment, something she had been looking forward to for years, and he couldn’t be happier to be a part of realizing her dream. Plymouth Falls was going to grow once more, and she would be at the forefront of it.
Her.
My mate.
Victor had never smiled harder in his life.
Chapter 40
She pulled up in front of Drakon Keep.
No. Not just Drakon Keep any longer. Now it’s something else. Something more.
It was home.
Getting out of her car, she smiled at Victor as he pulled up behind her in the pickup truck. Both vehicles were packed to the brim with items.
“I feel like a princess,” she said with a giggle as he parked it and slid out. “I’m going to live in a castle. An actual castle.”
“With a prince?” Victor suggested hopefully.
She looked him up and down appraisingly. “Hmmm. Let me see you bow.”
To her surprise and delight, Victor pulled himself upright and with a flourish of arms, bowed low at the waist, holding it for several counts before straightening. “My lady,” he said in a formal voice she’d never heard him use before. “Welcome to Drakon Palace. Shall I show you around?”
He extended an arm, the entire time keeping a straight face.
“You’ve done this before a time or two, haven’t you?” she asked dryly, though she let him take her arm and guide her toward the front steps.
“I’m a little over a hundred and fifty, not including the century I spent snoozing,” Victor replied. “I spent a little time with some of the upper crust, yes.”
She smiled. “Well, do I resemble the princesses?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Victor cried. “Absolutely not.” He frowned. “Vile creatures, truthfully. No, my darling, you are far more wonderful a person, and your beauty makes them pale in comparison. You are the most wondrous sight I have ever set my eyes upon.”
She laughed. “Oh, am I? What about the sight of me without any clothes on?” she teased, slipping from his arm and doing a little spin as they reached the top of the steps.
“Well, in that situation, my eyes aren’t the only thing I set upon you,” he growled, pulling her close so that he could kiss her.
“Is that a threat or a promise?” she whispered throatily when they parted. “After all, I have just moved somewhere new. Seems only appropriate that we should christen it, don’t you think?”
“You read my mind,” Victor chuckled. “You read my mind.”
Then, before she could react, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.
“Ack! Hey, what the hell is this?!” she protested as he pushed the door open and carried her inside like she was his prize.
“You wanted to be a princess, right?” he teased. “Well, this is how things went down back then. When a prince decided he wanted something, he took it.”
Propping herself up on his broad shoulder, Cheryl stared back down the hallway, watching it go past with every step Victor took.
“This is so not what I had in mind,” she muttered, though it was tough to keep a smile from her face.
After all, Victor wanted her.
And that, in itself, was something worth being happy about.
“I love you, you big oaf,” she whispered into his ear as best she could.
“And I you, my princess. My mate. My everything,” he rumbled.
“Does that mean you’re going to put me down now?” she asked brightly.
“Not a chance,” Victor said, obviously biting back laughter.
Cheryl sighed.
***
***
Thank you for reading Mated to the Water Dragon.
Next Book: Ice Dragons Caress (Keep Scrolling)
Ice Dragon’s Caress
High House Draconis Book #3
Riley Storm
Ice Dragon’s Caress
Copyright© 2019 Riley Storm
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, without written permission from the author. The sole exception is for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.
Edited by Annie Jenkinson, Just Copyeditors
Cover Designs by Kasmit Covers
Chapter 1
Yellowed light from an aging lamp post on the corner of the street reached out and brushed him with its touch. The dull rays seemed to dampen the arctic brilliance of the beast’s scales as he came in for a landing.
Branches groaned and bushes swayed backward, leaves and a light layer of snow sweeping up as a dozen miniature windstorms all broke out at once. The giant membranous wings, more icy-blue than bright white beat quickly with several powerful flaps, and then the dragon dropped the remaining ten feet to the ground.
Concrete cracked and dented where the four blue-white talons of each foot dug deep, slicing through the hardened material with ease. The ground shook slightly, and any snow that hadn’t been dislodged from nearby surfaces shivered free to float to the ground around the ice dragon, giving him the look of a creature straight out of a snowglobe.
Valla Drakon shook his long head, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension in them. It had been so very long since he’d last taken a flight, despite his insistence to the others that he needed to get out, to get in touch with his dragon once more after a century of sleep.
Nearby activity distracted the ice dragon as lights in windows of nearby houses came on. Not candles either, he reminded himself. Everyone used electricity now, in every house. They could turn the lights on with a simple switch. The world had changed since he had last roamed freely, and Valla was still not sure if that was for the better or worse.
Still, heeding at least one of the warnings of his siblings, he shifted back to his human form, a brown package slipping free of one of his hind legs as he shrank back to normal proportions.
“Hey!”
Valla spun around at the noise as someone emerged from a nearby house, clutching a robe closed tightly around his balding, portly figure.
“What the hell are you doing out her
e? Are you naked? You need to go, or I’m calling the cops!”
Cops. Slang for police, officers of the law. Valla knew what that meant, just as he knew getting entangled with official authorities would ruin his real purpose for coming into Plymouth Falls that night.
“So very sorry good sir!” he called with all formality, jogging over to pick up the brown bag that he’d carried so carefully with him. “Just a bit of a mix-up. A practical joke, you see, that my friends decided to play on me. So dreadfully not funny, I assure you. I will bring it up with them.”
The shouting male stood up, a frown on his face. “Right. A joke. Well, there are kids in this neighborhood.”
“In the bag,” Valla said calmly. “My attire for the evening. I will retreat to compose myself. Again, my abject apologies.”
“You’re not from around here, are you, son?” the man asked, his voice calming, though he did not approach any nearer.
Not that Valla could blame him. The dragon, in his human form, towered above the other man in sheer height, but he was also composed of little more than muscle, bone and sinew. The sight of such a round shape sticking out from the human’s midsection was…perturbing, so say the least.
Can modern men bear children? Is that what I am seeing?
He also ignored the irony of being called son, when, judging by what he could with the human, Valla was probably twice his age. Young for a dragon, only in his early ninth decade, but still more experienced than the human across from him.
“No, I’m visiting some relatives,” he lied gracefully, holding the bag in front of his crotch, believing that to put the other at ease.
It always amazed Valla how uneasy humans were regarding their nudity. As a shifter, he’d grown up accustomed to it as a way of life. The naked body was nothing to be ashamed about.
Though perhaps he is ashamed of whatever condition has given him his stomach.
Valla almost inquired if he could help out but decided against it. More lights were coming on, and he could see several other silhouettes in windows. It was time to go, before anyone looked at the impressions on the ground around him and started questioning things.
Keeping the secret of him and his kin was of utmost priority. None must know that dragons existed.
Turning, he dashed off into the darkness of a side street, wondering if perhaps he should have heeded Aaric and Victor’s warnings more closely, and not flown his dragon right over the outskirts of the city, just to save time.
Devices that can record moving pictures of the world around them, right! He laughed to himself at the nonsense of such a contraption. Black magic, perhaps, could do that, but according to Aaric, the Mages Guild were still rebuilding after the terrible battle that had ended the Shifter-Mage war a century earlier.
Valla had been there for that. He had participated in that devastating battle. Many had died. Too many.
Stop being so morose! You’re here for a night of fun. Of entertainment. To get out and reconnect with the humans. Not to weep about the past.
Pausing in the depths of as much darkness as he could find, Valla opened the bag and began to clothe himself in the contents.
Like any good dragon, he appreciated style. A style that had changed in many ways over the past eleven decades while he had been in the deep sleep of his kind, but yet was also still the same.
The suit went on him like clockwork, practiced hands doing clasps or buttons with ease. The cut and fit had changed, but in the end, a suit was still a suit. And like any dragon, Valla knew he looked good, even in the oddly tight modern garb that Victor had procured for him as part of his welcoming package.
There had been more of course. Weeks of education, bringing him up to speed on language, history and modern technology. So many weeks of it. Now, three months into what he was told was a six-month orientation process, Valla could handle it no longer. He’d needed out.
“And tonight, I get it,” he muttered to himself, walking out of the darkness and into the light, clad in a stylish silk outfit, pure black with a charcoal gray shirt underneath, accented with just a bit of purple on his tie, a deep violet shade that blended in in the darkness and was only visible up front.
Sweeping a hand through his hair, he pulled it off to one side, the finger-length strands holding in place. Again, a new change, but hairstyle updates were something Valla was used to, and he’d let the barber cut his without question. Whatever was modern, he’d said, so that had been provided.
Now to see if it worked.
A lump in his left pocket would provide the evening’s entertainment. A roll of cash, courtesy of Victor—or at least, it would be courtesy of Victor, once he noticed it was missing. But Valla intended to put it to good use.
Striding forward, he covered much ground as he headed for the center of town. Plymouth Falls had stagnated in growth, and much of the layout was the same as when Valla had last walked its streets. He headed for the downtown area, wondering what he would find.
It didn’t take long for his ears to pick up the distinct sounds of music, and he homed in on it like a pigeon to its roost. The building itself was fairly nondescript. The only clue to its origins was a red sign outside that read ‘Para’. Two men, one standing several inches taller even than Valla stood outside the door.
Bouncers, then. I must be in the right place.
“Gentlemen,” he said, smiling widely as he approached, noting the line of people waiting outside in the cold to get in. They were all dressed like him, or, in the case of the women, in provocative wear that, if Valla hadn’t been prepared for it, would have left him speechless.
Aaric said humans are finally beginning to accept that skin is not to be hidden. Now I see his point.
The flesh at the door wasn’t to his liking though. Valla needed a woman. Not an appetizer. He ignored them, their appreciative stares, and he also ignored the glares from the men with them, all of whom felt the attention of their dates wavering.
“Are you on the list?” the bigger of the two bouncers asked, keeping his tone friendly even as he shifted position to better face Valla.
“I was supposed to be,” he said, reaching into his left pocket slowly, keeping his right hand visible. The last thing Valla wanted was to appear threatening to the men. That would certainly end his night sooner than intended. “But I don’t know if I made it.”
He pulled out his left hand and extended it toward the clipboard the other bouncer was holding. Four crisp hundred-dollar bills found their way onto the top of it, appearing as if out of nowhere.
“Valla Drakon,” he said.
“Yes sir,” the lead bouncer said with a matching smile. “I do believe your name made it. Welcome to Para.”
He shuffled backward and pulled open a door.
The music and aroma of people partying crashed over Valla like a wave before the undertow sucked him into the building, absorbing him into its frenzy of mating rituals and inhibition-removing offerings.
Yes, this was much, much better than his endless lessons, and far better than having to hunt down the vampires that were ostensibly the reason the others had awoken him. Damn them, and damn their rules about not leaving.
Valla was going to enjoy life now that he was awake again. The hunt could wait.
After all, what was the worst that could happen to him?
Chapter 2
“This is crazy,” she giggled, her arm snug thoroughly through his, her fingers gripping his steel-hard forearm. “I never do this.”
“There’s a first time for everything then, isn’t there?”
“Valla,” she said, swatting at him playfully. “Stop it.”
They were almost at her house now. It had to be her place, he’d said, because he lived way out of town. He’d offered to get a hotel room, but she’d declined, not wanting him to spend money.
And also, because she didn’t want to wait. From the moment he’d set eyes on her, Liz had felt something inside her stir, as if brought to life by nothing more th
an Valla’s penetrating bright blue stare.
That’s not going to be the only penetrating thing of his.
Embarrassed at the vulgarity of her thoughts, Liz laughed out loud, trying to cover up the heated reaction in her cheeks. Not that he could see them this late at night, but still, she didn’t need to give him more ammunition.
Fumbling with her keys, Liz stepped up the short walkway to her house, but paused at the top of the three steps leading to her front door. Valla had stopped at the base of them, his arm sliding free of hers.
“What is it?”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” He spoke with uncharacteristic sincerity, at odds with the sexual flirtation he’d laid on her from the very start.
“Valla,” she said, letting her tongue roll over his name again. “I am a grown woman. I’m not that drunk. I know what I’m doing.” She paused. “And also what I hope to be doing shortly. I would not have shown you where I live, if I didn’t feel comfortable with you.”
A smile split his sharply carved features, and he hopped the three stairs in one easy lope, landing at her side, brushing up against her.
“I just had to check to be sure, you understand.”
“I do, and I appreciate it,” she purred, arching into him, basking in his touch. There was something about those fingers, the way they slid along her shoulders and then down her back, that just set a fire building in her core.
The door swung open and she stepped inside, just as eager to be out of her heels as she was for what would happen next between her and Valla.
She didn’t have to wait long. Her shoes weren’t even off before he was on her from behind. Her head fell to the side, the short curly strands of her currently dark-red hair falling away, exposing her neck to his greedy mouth.
“Oh,” she said, drawing in a sharp breath of air.
Hands slid under her arms, cupping her breasts and exploring every inch of her clothed skin with an intensity that surprised her. A good surprise though, because it was then that she felt his pants growing harder.